Do you enjoy watching a good western? I know a lot
of people consider them to be hokey, but I have always loved westerns. John Wayne is one of my favorites. He is always
the good guy, the tough guy, the guy everyone respects and fears at the same time. I know it’s hard to believe when he parades
around in every movie wearing a pink shirt, but everyone always fears John Wayne.
I grew up watching shows like the Lone Ranger and The Rifleman (reruns of course, how old do I look)? I was a HUGE Lone Ranger
fan. I even had the complete Lone Ranger dress-up outfit, and my first lunchbox was the Lone Ranger. Another western
I always loved was Bonanza. This 1960’s western is about the adventures of Ben Cartwright and his sons Adam, Hoss, and Little
Joe as they run and defend their ranch while helping the surrounding community. The unique thing about Bonanza is not
every episode was a shoot ‘em up western. Often they would do a comedy plot, and these episodes were always funny.
One of my favorites is titled “The Woman of Fire”. It’s a roughly adapted western version of Shakespeare’s “The Taming
of the Shrew”. In this episode, the oldest son, the ultra-serious Adam tries to tame a shrewish senorita while she waits
at the Ponderosa for her never-met husband-to-be.
Does this woman have issues! Mainly, she has a problem with
her temper. She is filled with passion about EVERYTHING. Whenever something upsets her she explodes and begins
yelling at people and throwing things. Because of her temperament, she has frightened away every man that wants to marry
her. The gentleman that is coming to the ranch to meet her is the last man her father can find who is willing to even
consider her for a wife. If she blows this opportunity, she will be alone forever.
Knowing this to be the case, everyone in her family and the Cartwright family does everything they can to get her to “bank the fire”
and become a pleasant and agreeable woman. Eventually, Adam gets through to her and she agrees that she will only be sweet,
kind, and docile so she can get married. It appears we’re headed for a happy ending. Only when her fiancé
arrives, he doesn’t want a sweet, kind, pleasant woman. He’s heard about her temperament and her reputation as a “woman
of fire” and that’s exactly what he wants in a wife.
More problems! Her fiancé feels he’s been deceived and he’s nauseated by the sweet, docile woman he’s expected to marry. What will they do? The only thing they can do—Adam determines to make her explode and show her true colors so that she can live
happily ever after.
Well, this wasn’t easy. Our fair senorita was a determined young lady and no matter how many times she was provoked she was determined to hold her temper
so she could get married. Adam had one last chance to get her to explode during a lake-side picnic. Desperate
to make her be herself, Adam decides to throw her into the river to make her show her true temperament.
Even this did not work. She came out laughing as if she’d fallen in. In a final, last ditch effort
to stir the flames he knew resided inside of this woman, Adam threw her fiancé in the river. Wisely, the fiancé figured
out what Adam was doing and he chose to pretend that he was passive and docile as well. He sat in the river refusing to
defend himself.
Well, that did the trick! Even
though she could make herself pretend to be sweet, kind and undisturbed to achieve her goal, this sassy woman had no tolerance for
a man who wouldn’t defend himself. From the banks of the river she exploded yelling, “Get up! Why don’t you
fight? Why don’t you fight? If this is how I have to act to get a husband who won’t even fight for himself,
then I don’t want one! Get up! Why don’t you fight?” Her passion and fire were back as she
decided that she was not a weak woman and she didn’t want a weak man. She wanted to fight!
I had to laugh to myself as I remembered this story a few weeks ago when I was experiencing a particularly difficult week. My sister, Adessa and I had recently been forced to take a righteous stand against a sinful situation. Although it was
difficult to do, we did it and went on with our lives. To be honest, I never expected the spiritual warfare
or spiritual attacks that we would endure because of our choice. However, a few weeks after we took our stand, we went
through a horrible week.
It began with an attack of mental
discouragement. Both of us were being bombarded with thoughts of hopelessness, discouragement, and fear. I
remember Adesa saying to me, “I wonder if this is a spiritual attack for the stand we took?” Unfortunately, that’s as
far as that thought went. I didn’t pray or plead the blood of Jesus. I chose not to fight, and that was a
bad choice because things only got worse.
As the week
went on, we both started having very weird, haunting dreams. We knew we weren’t allowing our minds to be influenced through
corrupt reading or television, so I figured it was just something we had to endure. Again, I didn’t fight. I didn’t pray or plead the blood of Jesus over my mind and thoughts. I didn’t take my thoughts captive as Jesus commands
and speak truth to the lying dreams. Instead, I continued to think about the dreams throughout the day and allowed myself
to become sad, depressed, and hopeless. Rather than fight, I was allowing myself to take a spiritual beating.
The final attack came from a person. Their words and
actions came at us like two loaded guns filled with discouragement, anger, and more hopelessness. This time I did choose
to fight. Unfortunately, I chose to fight the wrong target. Rather than recognizing that it was a spiritual
battle I was fighting, I got into a verbal argument with this person.
Again, a bad choice. Absolutely
nothing was resolved. Instead, I walked away exhausted and battle fatigued. As I asked God what in the world was
going on, I was reminded of the title of a book I had recently been reading. It was "Fight: Are You Willing to Pick a
Fight with Evil?" by Kenny Luck. I immediately realized what was wrong. It was like God was saying to me “Why don’t you
fight?”
Why didn’t I fight? Why did I let myself
be tortured for an entire week without even attempting to fight back spiritually? Remember, in the beginning of the week,
I recognized we were under spiritual attack. I even called someone else to pray for us. But why didn’t I obey the
words of Ephesians 6: 10-17 which said, “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God,
so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the
rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have
done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness
in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up
the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and
the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”? It’s almost as if I could hear the Holy Spirit asking me as the Senorita
asked her fiancé, “Why don’t you fight?”
I’m issuing the
same challenge to all of you: Why don’t you fight? Reality is that there is more to this world than the tangible things
that we can see, hear, touch, smell, and taste. These things belong to the physical world. However,
beyond that world is the spiritual world. In the spirit world there is a constant and ongoing battle between the forces
of good and evil—God’s kingdom and Satan’s kingdom. Remember, it says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,
but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly realms.”
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